Childhood Folly
by theravenclawsamurai
Summary: The story of Amy, Rory, and Mels, and how they grew up together. How did they meet? What happened to warrant all the different therapists? What was the story behind the story? Based off of a lot of the information given in "Let's Kill Hitler". Rated T because... well... I don't really know, exactly...
1. Chapter 1-Amy

Amelia Pond was annoyed.

It was a normal occurrence, but to her, it was the most important thing happening at that moment. Her aunt had just sent her out of the house to play. Normally, Amelia loved to play outside, but she certainly did not want to play in a "rubbish" place like Leadworth. She wanted to go back to Scotland, and she didn't want to have to live with Aunt Sharon anymore. Well, that was only partly true. She loved her aunt very much, but she hated the way that she was never around to play games with her, like her mum used to.

But here she was, in Leadworth, with nothing to do and nowhere to go. Her aunt hadn't yet put the TV into the apartment, so she couldn't go in and watch telly, and her art set with her favorite crayons were also packed away in a suitcase.

A noise came from down the alley, and it sounded like a yell. Amelia felt a smile playing across her lips: neighbors. Maybe there might be some nice kids to play with in this dull country! She skipped down the street, trying to make her footprints go in a zigzag pattern.

Soon she reached the source of the noise: a group of boys in the front yard of a small house. She watched as they ran to the roots of a tall tree, and started climbing up a rope ladder, hooting and pushing at each other as they went.

"Hey!" she yelled. "What're you all doin'?"

One of the boys, who was tall and had a t-shirt with a dinosaur on it, turned around and saw her. "Look!" he said. "A _girl_! And she's Scottish, too!"

A boy wearing blue denim overalls with dark brown hair turned around, purposely screwing up his facial expression. "Eww, girls! No girls allowed!"

Amelia frowned, and walked straight up to the tree. "Allowed for what?" she asked.

"In our club, of course!" the boy said. "You're dumb. Girls are dumb."

Amelia could feel her face getting red. _Of course,_ she thought. There was a tree house at the top of the rope ladder, and the boys were climbing up and into it. She reached for the ladder, but overalls boy pulled the ladder up to the house.

"Ha!" he said. "Now you can't get in! You can't be in our club!" He looked at her smugly, clearly waiting to see how Amelia would react to this. Amelia just stared at first.

"Fine, then!" said Amelia, regaining her composure, "Then I guess you're just _stupid_, just like everyone else in this _rubbish _country!" And with that she stormed away, with even less hope that she might be able to live here and be happy.


	2. Chapter 2-Rory

Rory Williams was annoyed.

He'd just come back from Mike Bennington's house, where Mike, Eliot, and Chris had started a secret club in the tree house in Mike's front yard (admittedly, the front yard wasn't really the greatest place for a _secret_ club, but the boys were happy to make do), and they had decided not to let Rory join. Rory wasn't sure why this was, Eliot had probably told him while Chris and Mike had been busy jeering, but Rory had stopped listening to the group after he heard the word 'no'.

He could feel the tears burning in his eyes as he ran toward home, but he would not let himself cry. That was what his dad had always told him: if you get upset, it means that you're letting them win. And Rory did not want to let them win.

Nevertheless, he wanted to get home quickly in case he _did _cry, just so that they wouldn't see him. He sped up his running, looking back to make sure that they were out of sight, and-

"Ouch!"

Rory tumbled to the ground. He had been so busy running that he hadn't seen that there was another person running on the path.

"Hey!" said a voice. "Watch where you're going!"

Rory was startled to see that the owner of the voice looked to be a girl about his age, with bright red hair an annoyed expression.

"Sorry." Said Rory. "I was just-"

"Are you all right? You look like you've just seen a ghost," said the girl. The girl's face lit up. "_Have _you seen a ghost?"

Rory shook his head. "No, I haven't seen a ghost. I- well, I was just…uhh…"

The girl sighed, sounding disappointed. "What's your name, then? I'm Amelia. Amelia Pond."

"Rory Williams"

"Nice to meet you."

There was a brief moment of awkward silence, Amelia and Rory each looking at each other expectantly, then walked on their way. Rory frowned. He hadn't seen the girl, Amelia, before. He thought that he had known everyone in this neighborhood, even if they didn't let him join their secret club.


	3. Chapter 3- The Arrival of the Doctor pt1

"Go to _bed_, Amelia."

"No."

"AMELIA POND, YOU GO TO BED RIGHT THIS MINUTE!"

"NO!"

"Fine! Don't come crying to me when you're tired in the morning!"

Amelia didn't really mind going to bed (she liked to make up stories in her mind as she lay in bed, which she found fun) but she never told her aunt that. Why would she? It was her aunt's fault that she had to live here, and Amelia intended to never let her live it down.

She decided to go up to her bedroom, not because she was tired, but just because she wanted to. And definitely not because her Aunt had told her to.

"I'm going upstairs, but not because you told me to." She said, sticking out her tongue. Normally, she might have gotten a lecture for that on politeness, but Aunt Sharon just sighed and walked back to her armchair, where she resumed her knitting.

Amelia kneeled down by her bedside. Aunt Sharon had told her to start praying before bed, but Amelia didn't want to liked. She always felt like she didn't really know God. But she knew Santa Claus. She knew Father Christmas was good, and so she made sure to thank him for all the gifts he had brought her.

She looked over at her bedroom wall. She thought she'd heard the voices again. She heard lots of voices in her room at night. Her theory was that it was coming from the crack on her wall, the one that seemed to split everything in half, her whole room and all.

"Dear Santa," she said, almost whispering. "Thank you for the dolls and pencils and the fish. It's Easter now, so I hope I didn't wake you, but honest, it is an emergency."

She was going to tell Santa about the voices. The voices that came from the crack. Maybe one of his elves would be able to tell her why she was hearing the noises, and then one of his little helpers might be able to fix it.

"There's a crack in my wall. Aunt Sharon says it's just an ordinary crack, but I know it's not, because at night there's voices, so please, please, could you send someone to fix it? Or a policeman. Or a-"

She heard a sound, a loud, whooshing noise, and it was coming from outside in the garden. Maybe Santa had heard her, and was sending help. Again, she heard the noise- and then, suddenly, CRASH!

"Back in a moment," she said, and ran as fast her small legs could carry her, grabbing a torch and shined it out of her closed window.

The garden shed was in ruins, with planks snapped clean in half and its face lying in a mangled wreck… but there was something else among the grasses of the garden. A blue box was lying there, though it was on its side. Maybe this was a police car, for the man that was going to help her fix the crack in her wall, the one that made her feel as though someone was watching her…or perhaps some_thing_. Amelia shivered at the mere thought of it.

But she smiled a little: Santa had listened to her prayers! "Thank you, Santa," she whispered and then ran outside to meet the policeman.

Amelia arrived down in the garden and she looked at the box more closely. "POLICE BOX" it said. Could that mean…?

Amelia was about to walk closer and open the door to tell that policeman to _hurry up, _but, quick as the thought had come, the door to the blue box swung open, and a man stuck his head out. He looked like a rather out-of-place policeman, with his hair all wet and messed, and with his expression so unprofessional. But if there was one person Amelia trusted in this world, it would probably be Santa, and if Santa had sent this policeman, then she would trust him, too.

"Could I have an apple? All I can think about. Apples. I love apples. Maybe I'm having a craving? That's new. Never had cravings before." The man sat on the edge of the box and looked down into it, as if her were looking down to the bottom of a cliff. "Whoa. Look at that." He said. Amelia didn't understand, and assumed he must have been a bit disoriented, having the box fall on its side while he was still in it.

"Are you okay?" Amelia asked.

"Just had a fall. All the way down there, right to the library. Hell of a climb back up."

_What could he mean by that? _Amelia thought. "You're soaking wet," she said, hoping that he would give some kind of explanation.

"I was in the swimming pool."

Amelia was still confused. She frowned. "You said you were in the library."

"So was the swimming pool."

Amelia frowned again. "Are you a policeman?"

"Why? Did you call a policeman?"

"Did you come about the crack in my wall?"

This time, it was this turn to frown in confusion.

"What crack?" He turned to her, and then-

"Agh!" the man fell onto the ground, convulsing strangely.

"Are you all right, mister?" Amelia asked him again.

"No, I'm fine. It's okay. This is all perfectly norm-"

A golden material spewed from the man's mouth, cutting him off.

"Who are you?" she asked, though she suspected that the question would come of no avail to the peculiar raggedy man, and she didn't expect a real answer this time.

"I don't know yet. I'm still cooking. Does it scare you?"

Amelia was surprised by this question. Why should she be scared? The man had mentioned being completely normal, after all. "No, it just looks a bit weird."

"No, no, no. The crack in your wall. Does it scare you?"

This time, Amelia saw no reason for hesitation. "Yes."

"Well then, no time to lose. I'm the Doctor. Do everything I tell you, don't ask stupid questions, and don't wander off."

'The Doctor' strode purposefully towards the house, and promptly walked right into a tree.

"Are you all right?" Amelia asked for what seemed to be the five hundredth time.

"Early days. Steering's a bit off." The doctor said, although Amelia still had no idea what he meant.

The doctor walked right in to the house (which Amelia had no objection to, he was a policeman from Santa) and headed straight for the kitchen.

Amelia didn't know why he was doing this, but she still had questions. "If you're a doctor, then why does your box say 'police'?"

The doctor bit into an apple with a _crunch_, and immediately spit it out.

"That's disgusting," he said. "What's that?"

Amelia stared at him "An apple."

"Apples rubbish. I hate apples."

"You said you loved them."

"No, no, no. I like yoghurt. Yoghurt's my favorite. Give me yoghurt."

Amelia went over to the fridge and picked out a yoghurt. She handed it to the man, hoping that this would be over soon and he would be able to help her fix the crack in her wall. The doctor ate some of the yoghurt, then immediately went to the sink and spit it out.

As you may have guessed by now, this went on for quite a while. Finally, the doctor came up with his own food (but not before Amelia had been forced to make both beans and bacon).

There was barely anything left in the fridge. "We've got come carrots." Amelia said, as a last resort.

"Carrots? Are you insane? No. Wait. Hang on. I know what I need. I need, I need, I need fish fingers and custard!"

Amelia just sighed, exasperated.


	4. Chapter 4-The Arrival of the Doctor pt2

**A/N: Okay, I'm sorry if this is a little boring, but this is a really important scene, probably my favorite one in "The Eleventh Hour". These include the exact text from the episode(which I obviously don't own). Please review so that I can know how I'm doing (this is all pretty new to me).**

The man calling himself a doctor (although he obviously wasn't one, what kind of doctor dresses that badly?) was sitting across from Amelia, scooping custard onto his fish fingers and finally eating without complaint.

Amelia had found her own food (she was eating ice cream straight from the tub). Amelia was looking at the man across the table from her, and still couldn't thin of how, exactly; she could describe such a man. He wasn't exactly like anyone she'd ever met before, but she just couldn't figure out why.

"Funny," she said aloud.

"Am I?" the doctor said. "Good. Funny's good. What's your name?"

"Amelia Pond," she said.

"Oh, that's a brilliant name. Amelia Pond." Said the doctor. "Like a name in a fairy tale. Are we in Scotland, Amelia?"

"No." she said, happy that he could recognize her accent, but also wondering how he didn't know what country he was in. "We had to move to England. It's rubbish."

"So what about your mum and dad, then? Are they upstairs? Thought we'd have woken them by now."

"I don't have a mum and dad. Just an aunt."

"I don't even have an aunt."

"You're lucky," Amelia said, and was surprised to realize that she didn't regret saying it at all- she could live by herself. She didn't need Aunt Sharon to tell her what to do.

"I know. So, your aunt, where is she?" he asked.

"She's out," said Amelia (aunt Sharon had said that she was going to go buy some more yarn, but Amelia knew that getting more yarn was an all-night outing- aunt Sharon did have a way of planning unrealistically,)

"And she left you all alone?" the man asked. Amelia frowned. He seemed concerned.

"I'm not scared," she said, and it was true. She had always thought she was much braver than her Aunt anyway.

"Course, you're not. You're not scared of anything. Box falls out of the sky, man falls out of a box, man eats fish custard, and look at you, just sitting there. So you know what I think?"

Amelia looked at him, confused by the strange man once again. "What?"

"Must be a hell of a scary crack in your wall." He said.

The man went up to her room, and immediately ran over to her bedroom wall, observing it. "You've had some cowboys in here," he said. "Not actual cowboys, though that can happen."

Amelia [icked up one of the apples that her mother had given her. She remembered how the man had said he hated apples.

"I used to hate apples," she told him, holding out the apple, "so my mum put faces on them."

"She sounds good, your mum. I'll keep it for later. This wall is solid and the crack doesn't go all the way through it. So here's a thing. Where's the draught coming from?"

Amelia hadn't the slightest idea what he was saying, but decided to not let him know it, for now. The doctor took out a metal stick-like object. He pointed it at the wall, and pressed a button. The end glowed green in the night. But

"Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey. You know what the crack is?"

"What?"

"It's a crack. But I'll tell you something funny. If you knocked this wall down, the crack would stay put, because the crack isn't in the wall."

"Where is it, then?"

"Everywhere. In everything. It's a split in the skin of the world. Two parts of space and time that should never have touched; pressed together right here in the wall of your bedroom. Sometimes, can you hear-?"

"A voice," said Amelia, glad that she wasn't going mad (although this "doctor" person shouldn't have been reassuring, somehow, Amelia trusted him) "Yes."

The doctor emptied her water glass, and pressed it up against the crack. Suddenly, Amelia heard it. The voice that she'd been hearing in her room, clear as day, projected through her water glass.

"PRISONER ZERO HAS ESCAPED," it said. "PRISONER ZERO HAS ESCAPED."

Amelia looked to the doctor, but he seemed to be just as confused as she was. "Prisoner zero?" he said, thoughtfully.

"Prisoner Zero has escaped. That's what I heard. What does it mean?" she asked.

"It means that on the other side of this wall, there's a prison and they've lost a prisoner. And you know what that means?"

"What?" Amelia asked.

"It means that on the other side of this wall, there's a prison and they've lost a prisoner. And you know what that means?"

"What?"

"You need a better wall. The only way to close the breach is to open it all the way. The forces will invert and it'll snap itself shut. Or…" the doctor looked nervous, and confused.

"What?"

The doctor turned to Amelia. "You know when grown-ups tell you everything's going to be fine and you think they're probably lying to make you feel better?"

"Yes."

"Everything's going to be fine."

The doctor took her hand and pointed his green glowy metal stick-thing at the crack again, and the room was flooded with bright white light. "PRISONER ZERO HAS ESCAPED," said the voice, louder now. "PRISONER ZERO HAS ESCAPED."

Inside Amelia's room, there seemed to be another room with an eye in it. A very, very, large blue eyeball, staring straight at her.

"Hello?" the doctor yelled into the room. "Hello?"

"What's that?" Amelia asked, looking towards the eyeball.

A bright light flashed on the doctor, and the gap seemed to close.

"There, you see? Told you it would close. Good as new." He said.

"What's that thing? Was that Prisoner Zero?"

"No. I think that was Prisoner Zero's guard. Whatever it was, it sent me a message. Psychic paper. Takes a lovely little message," he took a pad of paper out of his pocket, and read the message: "Prisoner Zero has escaped. But why tell us? Unless…"

"Unless what?"

"Unless Prisoner Zero escaped through here. But he couldn't have. We'd know."

Amelia wasn't so sure, but the doctor made his way out of the room, and down the stairs, muttering to himself as he went.

"It's difficult. Brand new me. Nothing works yet. But there's something I'm missing. In the corner of my eye…" Amelia wasn't sure what he meant, but she did hear the strange sound emanating from the garden once again, but different this time.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!" the Doctor said, running out towards the garden, where his box lay. He waved his hands around wildly, gesturing towards the box, that still appeared to be emitting steam.

"I've got to get back in there. The engines are phasing. It's going to burn!"

"But it's just a box," Amelia questioned. "How can a box have engines?"

"It's not a box. It's a time machine." He said, looking at Amelia completely serious.

"What, a real one? You've got a real time machine?" she knew that she shouldn't believe him, but something told her that he was telling the truth.

"Not for much longer if I can't get her stabilised. Five-minute hop into the future should do it." He said, starting to climb into the box.

"Can I come?"

"Not safe in here. Not yet. Five minutes. Give me five minutes,I'll be right back."

Amelia scoffed. "People always say that."

"Am I people? Do I even look like people? Trust me. I'm the Doctor." He jumped into the box, and yelled "Geronimo!" as he plummeted down farther than the box looked from the outside. There was a splash, and the doors to the box slammed shut on their own. Amelia heard the strange whooshing noise once again as the box seemed to dissolve into thin air. He _had _been telling the truth! He had real time machine, one that she could use to get away from here!

She ran up to her room as fast as she could, packing up her things- the Doctor would be back in five minutes, and then she could travel through time! She put on a hat (just in case it got cold) and her coat, and ran back out to the garden with her suitcase, and sat and waited for her savior, the raggedy doctor, to come and show her all the great things you can see with a time machine!


	5. Chapter 5-Amy

**Okay, it's really short, but it just felt like a good place to end. I'll update again really soon.**

Amelia was still sitting on top of her suitcase when her Aunt finally got home. She was frantically trying not to let herself sleep, blinking as fast as she could to keep her eyes from closing.

"Amelia!" said Aunt Sharon. "What in the devil are you doing out here at such an hour?!"

"Just… waiting…" said Amelia, quietly. "Just go to sleep, Aunt Sharon. I'll be back in five minutes."

"What do you mean? Are you going somewhere?"

"Yes," Amelia said. "He said he'd be back in five minutes."

"_Who _said he'd be back in five minutes, Amelia? What are you babbling on about?"

"The Doctor, of course," said Amelia. "He's a time traveller."

Aunt Sharon sighed. "What have I told you about telling tales? Just last week you told the postman that you'd seen a werewolf in the neighbor's yard, for crying out loud! You need to go back to sleep."

"But this time, it's real!" whined Amelia. "The Doctor was here! I gave him one of my mom's apples!"

Aunt Sharon looked at her again, this time with a sadness in her eyes that Amelia had never seen before. "Just go back to sleep," she said.

"But the Doctor-"

"You have to grow up someday, Amelia. Your parents are both gone, and making up tales is not going to bring them back."

Amelia could feel tears brimming in her eyes. Her raggedy doctor would come back for her, she knew it. But how come he wasn't back yet? He had said five minutes…


	6. Chapter 6-Rory

Rory woke up with a start. He'd had the strangest dream the past night- but his memory of it was slipping away fast. All he could recall was a strange whooshing noise, and some smoke going up into the darkness of the night.

But the thought slipped away as his father called up to him from downstairs. "Rory! Time for breakfast!" Rory blinked and walked down the stairs, using the banister to support his tired body.

His father was already awake, prancing about the room gleefully, spatula in hand. "Pancakes today, Rory!" he said happily. "Are you ready for your first day of second grade?"

"Yup," said Rory, digging in to a plate of warm pancakes, hot off the stove. He wasn't really that excited, in fact, he was a bit nervous. He didn't want another episode like the one yesterday, where the other boys on the street hadn't let him join their club.

"You'll make some new friends today, right Rory?" said his father cheerfully. "All it takes is a smile and 'Hello', right?

"Right!" said Rory, cheering up a little. He hoped that he would make a new friend today. Then he wouldn't even care about the club- he'd have his friends to play with. He could just picture all those boys, begging him to be in their club when he had found new popularity. "Too bad, Chris," he'd say. "I don't want to join your club anymore. I have my _own_ club now, just for _my _friends."

"Oh, please let us join your club, Rory!" Mike would say.

"Me too!" Eliot would say.

Rory smiled. That was a good vision.

"Great! Smile like that, and you'll be making new friends in no time!" said his father. "Now, why don't you go get ready?"

Rory walked upstairs to his bedroom, and picked out his cool new shirt that his dad had bought for him just last week. It was blue, with a spaceship across the front. Rory loved spaceships. He'd always wanted to be an astronaut, and fly to the moon… maybe discover some aliens, with little green heads and eleven eyes!

Once he was dressed, he brushed his teeth, picked up his backpack with his brand-new outer space-themed lunch box, and started walking to the bus stop.

"Have a great day!" his dad called from the door, and watched him until he turned the corner and was out of sight.

Rory's bus stop was right in the middle of the neighborhood, and it was a great meeting place where kids met up to play most of the time throughout the summer vacation. However, today it was finally going to be for its original purpose: so that everyone could wait for the bus.

"Hey!" a voice yelled as Rory walked up to the stop. All of the daydreams from earlier disappeared. Rory knew that voice all too well, and only wished that it would go away. This was the voice of Mike, one of the group of boys with the fancy club and treehouse.

"Hey, it's baby Rory! Why are you late, Rory?" said Mike

"I had to pack my lunch," Rory mumbled.

"What did you say? You had to change your diaper? Was that it, Rory?" said Eliot, who appeared to have just arrived. The other boys laughed. Mike gave him a high-five.

"Nice one," said Mike. Eliot looked at him happily.

Mike was the leader of their club. He was the oldest, and was starting third grade today. All the boys on the street wanted to be just like him when they grew up.

Rory walked away from the group as they laughed, and stood at the edge of the stop. His father had been wrong. There was no way that he could make new friends today, and this year was going to be just like the last one. Then, suddenly, he heard a voice.

"Hey, are you okay?"


	7. Chapter 7-Amy

**Thanks to everyone who has reviewed and followed this story! It means a lot!**

Amelia had to go to her first day of school the next day. She didn't see how she could, when she knew that the Doctor would be returning. _What if he comes back during school? _She thought. But Aunt Sharon would hear nothing of it. No matter how much Amelia tried to convince her, Aunt Sharon would not believe her.

_My real mum would have believed me_, she thought. _She would have let me stay home to wait for him_.

But it was no use. Her aunt wanted her to go to school. "You need to have them be social at this age, you know?" she said to one of her many annoying friends on the phone. "Yes, you're completely right." She smiled, then her smile wavered a bit. "Oh really?" she said, sneaking a glance over at Amelia. "What's the name? Ohh, really? Here, lemme write this down…" she walked towards her pad of paper that she kept on the desk. Amelia looked at the clock, and saw that it was time for her to go.

"Okay, Auntie!" she said loudly, trying to get her Aunt's attention. "I'm going! Right now!"

Her aunt paid her no mind, still chattering with her friend on the telephone, and writing something down on her paper pad. Amelia gave up, and simply walked out of the door.

She looked at the ruined shed, wishing that the blue box could be sitting there, with her Doctor standing in the doorway, inviting her to come travel through time with him in his magic machine. But she looked again, and all that she could see was the shed, just as mangled and broken as it had been before, and the box was nowhere to be seen.

She wasn't really sure where her bus stop was, but soon she came across a spot in the road where some kids that appeared to be about her age were standing. She watched, and saw the blond boy that she had met yesterday arrive. She also recognized some of the boys from the treehouse, who had been mean to her for being a girl.

The blond boy was standing by the side, covering his face with his lunchbox and facing away from the boys, who laughed and jeered. She walked up to him, and, in one short moment, made her decision. She went up to the blond boy, the only one who had been nice to her the day before.

"Hey, are you okay?" she asked, a little haltingly.

The boy uncovered his face slowly, as if he were scared that she was going to hit him.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said, glancing over at the boys, who were staring at Amelia with looks of confusion on their faces. For a while, no one said anything. Then, the bus came rolling in, and its breaks squealed as it sputtered to a stop in front of the group of kids.

Walking aboard the bus, Amelia knew that she was probably letting go of a chance to find the Doctor, but she knew that she had no choice. Besides, the doctor was going to wait for her. She knew it. He at least needed to return her the apple that she had given her- the one with the face on it. It was one of the few things that she had left of her mother, and even a silly, mad man like the Doctor would know to bring it back to her.

She walked on to the bus, and was immediately faced with a problem: she had no idea where to sit. The bus was full of children, and she didn't recognize a single one of the faces that she saw, the faces that seemed to all be staring at her expectantly.

The year five kids looked at her from the very back of the bus. One of them said something, and the others laughed, their eyes still trained on Amelia. She looked for an empty seat, but there wasn't one.

She looked to where the blond boy, Rory, was sitting. He was at the edge of the seat, staring out the window. She sat down next to him. "Hi," she said. "I'm sorry about the treehouse boys back there,"

Rory turned around, with another surprised look on his face. "No," he said, blushing a bit. "It's okay. They're not that bad when you get to know them."

Amelia was skeptical, but she let it go. Maybe, if she made a new friend, then she could have someone her age travelling with her and the Doctor.

"Do you want to be friends?" she blurted out, not even thinking about what she was saying.

Rory looked at her again, his eyes wide. He almost looked afraid. _What reason is there_, Amelia thought, _to be afraid of making a new friend?_

**That's chapter 7! Please review, I'd really like to know how I'm doing so far on this story, since it's the first one that I've written. Thank you for reading!**

**-theravenclawsamurai**


	8. Chapter 8-Rory

**I have nothing to say but please review! I'd love to get some feedback on my writing!**

Rory couldn't believe it. What were the chances that he would meet a random girl one day, and then the next she would want to be his friend? Rory was confused; he hadn't ever had that many friends. He'd been friends with the boys on the block once, back in Nursery school and up until the year before, but since then, things had changed. The boys had met Mike, and suddenly everyone wanted to play with him all the time. He was older and a lot more fun. He remembered back then- Mike used to be the big, mean kid, and he and Eliot and Chris used to plot to spy on him, two-way radios in hand, climbing up trees and hiding behind boulders- but one day, everything changed. Rory remembered it so well…

_Rory ran outside, ready to meet Chris and Eliot over by the tall tree. Today was an important day- it was the day that they were going to prove that they weren't babies anymore. They were going to prove Mike wrong._

_ The plan was simple: They were going to invite Mike outside to play with them, and one of them would suggest the game of hide-and-seek. The plan was to leave Mike in his hiding place, just sitting there, while the boys went back to Eliot's to play another, more fun game._

_ Mike walked over to the tall tree, meeting up with the group. Rory looked to Chris and Eliot excitedly. He couldn't wait, Mike was finally going to learn his lesson! "Hey, what're you guys doing this time?"_

_ "We're playing hide-and-seek," said Chris proudly. "You want to play with us?"_

_ "Of course not," said Mike. "Hide-and-seek is for babies,"_

_ The boys looked at each other. They had not foreseen this setback. "You're just scared that we'll find you first," said Eliot. "That's okay. If you're scared, we can just play hopscotch instead…"_

_ "No, no, I'll play," Mike said quickly. "I'm not afraid of some baby game."_

_ It was decided that Mike would be the "seeker" and the other boys would hide. As soon as Mike had closed his eyes and had begun to count, the boys dispersed: Rory ran one way, while Eliot and Chris ran in the other. He watched as the boys disappeared into the trees, until he finally claimed his own hiding space, behind some large plants in the neighbors' garden. _

_ He listened as Mike stopped counting, looking around only briefly before running off into the woods. Rory chuckled a bit under his breath. He got up quietly, and started to make his way over to the real hiding space. The real hiding space wasn't for a person, of course. It was for the water pistols that they were going to use on Mike. _

_ It was when he first got to this hiding place that he noticed that something was wrong. The water pistols were no longer at the foot of the tall tree. Rory looked around. Maybe Mike had stolen them! He ran back into the woods, towards where the other boys had run- only to run straight into a rough spurt of water. _

_ "Ha!" cried Chris, who had just come out of the shrubbery. "I can't believe you fell for that!"_

_ Just as Rory had feared, Mike's face also emerged, his face twisted into an expression of cruel joy. He looked over to Eliot, who had a different expression on his face. He looked afraid. Yet, there he was. Water pistol in hand, though his hand was shaking. Rory saw something else in his face also: determination._

_ He turned and ran, but they followed him all the way until he had reached the front door of his house. There, he found out that there was no way for him to go back out. _

Rory had never seen the same friends of his again- they were so different now. It seemed as though they were never going to go back to normal. He'd thought that maybe they'd grow out of it, like his dad had said that they would, but they still wouldn't let him join their clubs. He didn't know why. He never did find out what made his friends turn on him so much, what Mike had said to them before or after the game of hide-and-seek. All he knew was that they weren't friends with him anymore.

That was why he was avoiding the red-haired girl's eye, even when she said she wanted to be friends. After all, how could he know that she was for real?

"It's okay if you don't want to be friends," Amelia said, turning away slightly. "I just thought that…"

"No," Rory said quickly "let's be friends,"

Amelia's face immediately lit up. "You want to know something, then?"

She looked so happy; Rory couldn't help smiling, too. "Yeah. What is it?"

Amelia looked over her shoulder both ways, as if she were checking if anyone was listening. "I'm going to become a time traveller,"

"What?!" said Rory, astonished. He'd never met a time traveller before.

"I know," Amelia said. "You probably don't believe me,"

"No, I believe you," said Rory, "but how are you going to do that?"

Amelia smiled even wider. "I met a man. A mad, raggedy type of man, who calls himself the Doctor,"

"A raggedy doctor?" asked Rory. "Where did he come from?"

Amelia thought for a moment. "Well, I don't quite know, but I know he uses his blue box as a ship, and it says "Police" on it. He said that he was going to just go five minutes into the future, and then he'll take me with him through time and space!"

"Space? Cool!" Rory said. "Why isn't he back yet?"

Amelia's smile wavered a bit. "I don't know that, either," she said, "but I know that he'll be back for me. I just know."

"Okay," said Rory, a bit sad that his new friend was going to leave so soon. "Can we be friends until he comes back, then?"

"Of course," said Amelia.


	9. Chapter 9-Rory

Since this year was their second year, they were finally given an art class. Amelia and Rory had found out that they were in the same class, and they were lucky and they were able to take art for their first day! Rory knew that he liked the room as soon as he walked in, there were lots of posters up all over the room with all kinds of pictures on them, of planets, stars, flowers… to him it seemed as though there was a photo of almost everything that he could have possibly imagined. He looked over at Amelia, who he had been walking alongside for the whole day so far. Her smile was wide as she looked around, and for some reason, it made Rory smile. She looked so happy, it was almost as if she were somehow lighting up the whole room.

Amelia looked back over at him now, and he smiled a bit, too. They picked a table and sat on stools next to each other. Mrs. Jones, the art teacher, smiled down at everyone as they took their seats. She was a rather old woman, wearing a paint-splattered apron over her sweater. Her brown hair was in a bundle of curls, but streaks of grey were very apparent. She handed everyone a piece of paper, and there was a big bucket of crayons, one for each of the tables of students.

Amy picked up a blue crayon. "Hey," she said. "You know that spaceman I told you about? The one that visited me last night?"

"Yeah. Is he real?" Rory was thinking about it, and somehow it seemed unlikely that Amelia was telling the truth. He wanted to believe her, he really did, but he was thinking about the trick that had been played on him so long ago. He didn't want to be the fool for a second time.

"Of course he's real," said Amelia. " I saw him. Do you want to see a picture of what he looked like?"

"Is he blue?" Rory asked, looking skeptically at her choice of crayon color.

"No, silly," said Amelia, scoffing a bit. " He came in a police box, and that was blue,"

"A police box?" Rory asked. "I've never seen one of those,"

"Me either," said Amelia, " but that's what it said on it. The Doctor-person said that it was his spaceship," she explained, her expression completely serious. She drew on her paper with the crayon. "It just sort of looked like a phone box to me," she drew a box shape, and then added a door and a sign to the side of it. Rory watched as she drew a man beside it, a man wearing a tie and a shirt, and she jabbed her black crayon to create lots of tears and spots in it. She drew a picture of another, shorter, figure with red hair. Rory assumed that this must be her.

"What do you think that I should draw?" Rory asked. He wasn't nearly as good a 'draw-er" as Amelia was, but he was pretty sure that he was supposed to do something in this class other than sit and watch her draw.

But Amelia didn't answer this question. She just stared at her own drawing, her expression suddenly somber.

"I wish that he would come here right now," she said, quietly. "_He said _he'd be here in five minutes. He said that he would… and now he's not."

Rory wasn't sure what he should say. There was nothing to do to help her, nothing he could do that would bring this "Doctor" man here, no way that he could reach into the sky and pluck away the blue police box and bring it to her, though if there was a way, he knew that he would.

"Well… we could always play pretend," he said tentatively. Amelia looked back at him.

"You'd… you'd do that?" she said, still with the sadness in her voice.

"Sure I would. You're my friend, right?" Rory said. He smiled at her weakly. He was glad that she hadn't laughed at him. Most boys, as he found out from Mike, didn't like to play pretend. He'd said that only babies played pretend.

"No," Amelia said, suddenly.

"What?" Rory said, taken aback.

" No," she said again. "He _will _come. In fact, he's probably there, in the garden right now." She looked a bit more worried. "What if he thinks that I've left?" she asked herself. "What if he leaves without me?"

Amelia stood up from her stool, and proceeded to walk towards the door to the art room. Rory watched, almost unable to move. Was she really going to…?

"Amelia?" Mrs. Jones said. "Where are you going?"

Amelia turned around briefly, mouth open as if she was going to say something. Then she closed her mouth, as if she were making a decision. She opened the door and walked right out of the room, carefully closing it behind her.

"AMELIA!" Mrs. Jones yelled, in her frail and clearly worn-out voice. She opened the door quickly, just in time to see Amelia turn a corner towards the school's entrance- which was clearly about to become the school's exit.

Mrs. Jones ran after Amelia, but her frail legs could not carry her as fast as they clearly used to. Amelia was gone in less than the time it took for her to even stand up.

"She's gone back to her house," Rory said in disbelief. "she's gone to find her raggedy doctor," He didn't even hesitate before he ran after Amelia, following her out of the door, passing Mrs. Jones, and out of the doors of the school.

He could barely see Amelia, she was a much faster runner than he was, he could already tell. She ran behind the trees, and Rory lost sight of her.

Mrs. Jones finally made it out of the school doors. "It's no use," Rory said. "She's already too far away,"

Mrs. Jones stopped running, resting her hands on her thighs and wheezing. "Where's…(cough) she…(wheeze) gone off to?"

Rory knew where she was going, but a sudden, strange streak of loyalty to Amelia came through. Not even really thinking about what he was doing, Rory, replied to her question.

"I don't know," Rory lied. He did know, of course, that Amelia would go straight to her house, which couldn't be too far from where he lived if it wasn't far from Mike's new tree house club. Somehow, he wanted to give her enough time to find her spaceman, even if he had only just met her.

**Review? I kind of like this chapter myself, I'd love to see what you all think.**

**-theravenclawsamurai**


	10. Chapter 10-Rory

Amelia didn't come back to school that day. Rory could see the looks of anxiety on the faces of the secretaries as he walked out of school. He stopped by the door to the office and pressed his ear against the keyhole so that he could hear inside.

"Yes… her aunt's not answering her phone…says that the line's in use…of course she doesn't have parents, why do you think we're calling her aunt? Yes, no indication… well, I'm certainly not fast enough… insurance? Well, let's just hope she doesn't get hurt…"

Rory knew that this was the voice of the principal of the school, but he had no idea who could possibly be on the other end of the line. He wasn't really sure what "insurance" meant, either. He was pretty sure that it sounded bad, though. Maybe it meant that there was going to be some kind of special police that would take Amelia away, or something worse! Rory tore his ear away from the door, and began to walk home, walking extra-fast as he went.

He was about to pass by his own house and go straight to Amelia's, when he heard his father's voice calling from the front door. "Hey, where do you think you're going?"

Rory whirled around. His dad was standing at the front door, his eyebrows creased with what seemed to be worry, but the wrinkles beside his eyes hinted at something else, something warmer. Nonetheless, Rory knew that he couldn't go to Amelia's house now (he wasn't even really sure how to get there) or try to find her somewhere else. She was probably far away already, somewhere cool, like Saturn, or Venus, or even on a star.

"Nowhere," he mumbled. "I wasn't going anywhere."

His dad shrugged. "All right then. How was the first day?"

"All right, I guess,"

"Did you meet any new friends?"

"Maybe,"

He smiled, ruffling Rory's hair. "That's my boy," he said. He and Rory walked inside. Rory picked up an old notepad. He walked into the sitting room, a yellow outfit with a large, round table and a squishy sofa, and put the notepad down on the table.

"What're you doing?" his dad asked, walking into the room. Rory ignored him for a moment, then, all of a sudden, smiled widely. He went to a cupboard and opened it to find his old crayons. He didn't quite know why (had stopped using crayons a while ago) but he took them out anyway and laid them on the table. He finally knew what he was going to draw.

He picked up a blue crayon. Then, he picked up an orange one. He was just about to put the blue one down onto the paper, when there was a knock at the door.

He heard his father walk over and open the door. For a moment, it seemed that no one was there. Then there was a voice, a voice that Rory had wanted to hear all day.

"Hello. Is…is Rory here?"

Rory and Amelia walked side-by-side along the path, in silence. Amelia hadn't said a word since she had spoken to his dad, and he didn't want to say the wrong thing and look like a nutter. No. That day was not going to be today, not when he had just made the first friend that he'd had in such a long time. No. Today, Amelia would be the one to speak first, the one who would tell him what had happened, why she had left the school so unceremoniously.

He looked over at her. She didn't look back, but her face was stony and pale. Rory gave up.

"So… what were you thinking? Today, I mean. Why did you… run off, like that? I bet the teacher thought you'd gone off your rocker," He smiled at her weakly, chuckling a bit.

"What?" said Amelia, her tone half-accusatory, half joking. "Do _you _think that I'm off my rocker?"

"No," Rory said. "But I don't really know why you ran all that way,"

"I wanted to find the Doctor," Amelia said, "But he wasn't there."

Rory looked at her. He knew that she could most certainly be lying to him, trying to see if he would play the fool again, just like he had with his old friends, especially Eliot, who had always seemed to be sincere when he was telling complete lies all along. He looked at Amelia, straight in the eyes.

"You still don't believe me," Amelia said. " I can tell. That's okay. No one believes me, not even my own Aunt" she looked up at the sky, as if she were searching for something. "My mother would have believed me," she said, quietly.

Rory could see something now, something in Amelia's expression. He could see himself there, someone who missed someone else, like he missed his old friends. And he also knew that she was telling the truth, somehow. That somewhere, somehow, there was a time-traveling man named the Doctor, and that, even though it seemed impossible, Amelia had found a way to meet such a man. It seemed to him that Amelia was the kind of girl who didn't care whether things were possible or not.

"I really do," he said, so suddenly that Amelia almost jumped. She looked as though she had only just realized that he was there.

"What?" she asked.

"I really do…believe you," Rory said. "About the man. And about the box, the blue box, the one that goes in time and-"

Amelia cut him off by giving him a hug. Rory was confused. All he'd said was that he believed her. He could feel warmness in his cheeks, and knew that he was probably blushing. Amelia let him go. She looked at him sheepishly.

"So, uh… how about we do what you said before?" she asked.

"What's that?" asked Rory, not recalling saying anything of the sort.

"Well, play pretend, of course!"

"Sure!" Rory said, then frowned. "What about the real doctor? Isn't he going to be here?" Immediately, he wished he hadn't mentioned it. Amelia's smile faded.

"He is," she said simply. "but... until he comes… we could play. If you want to, I mean. If you don't want to be friends, that's okay too. Or if you just don't want to play-"

"Alright," said Rory. "Yeah. D'you want to go over to my house?"


End file.
